What Do You Take From Your Coffee?

image found via designspongeonline.com

Making lists is how I start most create projects and ideas. I write down at least ten ideas in ten minutes (or less), and then go from there. Lists are great for focusing. They let you know how much you already know. They expose your default thinking (the places you turn to again and again because they are common and safe). And they act as a foundation for organizing items into groups, so that you can see patterns and bigger pictures.

This fantastic poster by plaid-creative is, at its core, a list of different types of coffee. It was likely created so an intern doing a coffee run would know the difference between a Long Black and a Basic Black. But it does so much more than that. It shows recipes and patterns. It shows form and state (notice the blue cups for the cold coffees?), it shows ratios and ingredients.

If I asked you to come up with 10 new kinds of coffees in ten minutes, you would do much, much better with this poster in front of you because you would be able to expand on the existing patterns. Your brain could start to mix, match, and substitute instead of struggling to create something from nothing. What would you call a coffee with 4 espressos? What if the Miami Vice was chilled? What if you put whip on a Red Eye?

Sometimes you need to make a list of what already exists before you can create something new. And sometimes you just need a good shot of caffeine.